Blowing smoke: Vintage ads of doctors endorsing tobacco

It's no secret that smoking is bad for your health. But only 50 years ago this week, the Royal College of Physicians in the U.K. issued the first major report warning of smoking's dangers.

Two years after the British report, the U.S. Surgeon General issued its own report on health risks from smoking. It led to Congress requiring warning labels on tobacco products the following year, and eventually, imposing tighter restrictions on cigarette advertising.

But prior to these reports, some of the biggest tobacco salesman were doctors, dentists and nurses. To ease a public that was growing increasingly concerned with smoking's health risks in the early 20th century, cigarette companies turned to images of medical professionals for their campaigns.

Keep clicking to see the "health claims" doctors make in these vintage ads from the collection at Stanford University....